


and battle lines are drawn across this town

by forcynics



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Half-Sibling Incest, Historical, Incest, Multi, Sibling Incest, Threesome, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-05
Updated: 2012-04-05
Packaged: 2017-11-03 03:14:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/376491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forcynics/pseuds/forcynics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's 1899 in New York City and with Kol's return everything is on the edge of breaking apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and battle lines are drawn across this town

 

Kol reappears in their lives on a Friday evening.

Klaus is trailing after Rebekah into the foyer of their brownstone town house when she stops dead in front of him. He moves quickly, a hand at her waist as he peers over her shoulder—

Their brother is sprawled on the staircase, dinner jacket rumpled with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. His hair is shorter, finer cut than the last time Klaus laid eyes on him, but granted, that was nearly a hundred years ago.

“Kol!”

He means to call his brother out, inquire what in the world he is doing here, how he found them – because if he found them, will Mikael be close behind? Must they leave again, when they have only been here a month and New York is so much more _alive_ than anywhere else in the world these days? – but it is Rebekah that speaks first, with an excitement in her voice that he cannot say he shares.

Kol smirks, a lazy sort of look, as he peels himself off the stairs, stretching his arms out wide and grinning at their sister. He’s got an unlit cigar in one hand, and he perches it between his lips as he stalks across the marble floor to wrap his arms around Rebekah

She laughs, gliding just out of Klaus’s grasp, his hand sliding off her white brocade skirts. Rebekah presses a kiss to Kol’s cheek, then assumes a haughty expression as she draws back.

“You know, it’s really not nice at all for you to spend so long away,” she chides, eyes narrowed. Kol only raises an eyebrow, foolish smirk still playing at his mouth as he slips an ornate lighter out from inside his jacket, lighting the cigar before tucking it back away. He then extends an arm towards Rebekah expectantly.

“Ah, but I swear I come bearing stories for you, dear sis.” His grin promises extravagant and most likely exaggerated tales; it’s nothing short of mischievous, though Rebekah’s answering grin could give it a run for its money. One hundred years, yet they fall into this as easily as ever. Klaus shifts his weight, clenching his hands and sucking in his cheeks before exhaling loudly.

“How did you find us?” he demands, grabbing Kol’s arm to get his attention.

Kol swivels his head to stare at him, and he sucks in deep from the cigar before removing it from his mouth to answer, though he first blows out a thick puff of smoke. He’s still grinning.

“Relax, brother, Father’s not on my heels.” He shakes his arm free, then extends it to Rebekah again. She twines her arm around his, and twists around to meet Klaus’s eyes.

“Come, let us hear Kol’s stories,” she decides. Klaus stares at her. It takes a second too long before he can force an attempt at a jovial smile.

“Yes,” he agrees. And before they adjourn to the parlour, he slips around to Rebekah’s other side, and takes her other arm. She arcs an eyebrow at him but turns her head back in rapt attention to Kol shortly.

Kol only laughs, and blows another ring of smoke up towards the ceiling.

“I’ve missed you two.”

Klaus isn’t sure if it’s a joke or not, but that’s par for the course where Kol is concerned.

 

 

 

Mr. and Mrs. Edward Jones are hosting an elaborate ball to celebrate their eldest daughter’s betrothal. Klaus and Rebekah, having established a position for themselves amongst New York’s elite – the mysterious, beautiful brother and sister from a wealthy European family, no one really knows where or who; there are new rumors daily but none come close – were invited, naturally.

Kol picks up the invitation from Rebekah’s dresser and laughs.

“I hear New Yorkers know how to throw a party,” he winks. “I assume it will be full of... _tasty_ young things?”

She snatches the invitation back from him, and Klaus interrupts from where he’s lounging on the bed.

“Oh, you’re not coming with us.”

Kol laughs, pulls a mocking frown as he finally looks away from Rebekah. “And why’s that?”

Klaus sits up quickly, moving across the room in a blur to stand in front of his brother. “Because, _dear brother_ , we are trying not to draw attention to ourselves here, and that won’t exactly be possible with you munching openly on _tasty young things_ , now will it?”

Kol’s mouth presses into a straight line for a moment, jaw clenched, and then it evaporates, foolhardy grin back in place.

“Last I heard, Father was all the way on the other side of the world. So I say we _indulge_ , because this—” he points a finger at Klaus, “—is pathetic, brother.”

And Klaus hates the way his younger brother is always so desperate to get under his skin, seems to grow younger and more immature with each passing century. He wants to throw him into the wall, wrap his fingers around his throat, and toss him out on the street, but then Rebekah is flouncing up from her vanity and draping her arms around both of them.

“Play nice, boys,” she advises, smirking. “Kol can escort me, anyway.”

Klaus glares, but Kol is paying him no attention anymore, bowing low and dramatic instead, offering his hand in a grand flourish, and declaring, “Oh, Bekah dear, I thought you’d never ask!”

The two of them are laughing as Klaus blows out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

 

 

 

He’s winding his tie around his neck when Rebekah slips into his bedroom. She’s dressed in red silk, with black lace embroidered on her bodice, and her hair is swept up to leave the back of her neck exposed, tendrils of golden hair framing her face in curls.

“Are you not glad in the slightest that Kol has returned?” she asks. “He’s our _brother_.”

Klaus snorts. “Yes, our brother who’s roamed every corner of the world, who drops in and flocks away with no care for discretion, who cannot be _trusted_ , Bekah.”

She’s swept closer to him, and reaches to pry his tie away from him. She gives it a sharp yank before she sets about tying it properly. “You sound paranoid.”

He grabs her hands, pries her fingers off the tie and holds them tightly. “And _you_ sound foolish.”

“I don’t _trust_ him,” Rebekah snaps, pulling her hands free, glowering.  “Don’t think so low of me, Nik. I am well aware that Kol is not dependable, that Kol comes and goes as he pleases, that Kol did not hold hands with me and promise _always and forever_ , that Kol is not _you._ ”

She finishes his tie quickly, and settles her palms on his chest. “But this city already knows _you_ to be my brother, and Kol is a marvelous dancer.”

Klaus rolls his eyes, but his hands go to her waist, fingers pressing tight into the smooth fabric as he crowds close, guiding her back to the bed. He presses his mouth to her neck, sucks at the skin and _nips_ —

“Ah, ah,” she chides, pulling her head back. “I must look presentable.”

She winks and then glides out of the room with her skirts trailing on the floor, and Klaus grabs his suit jacket and follows her. _And Kol must remember what is not his,_ he thinks, but he knows he is being as foolish as Rebekah if he thinks that’s ever stopped his brother before.

 

 

 

Kol dances with Rebekah most of the night, and the gossiping society mothers are all a titter. Klaus drinks from flutes of champagne until he loses count, and only then does he set out picking a girl from the crowd. There’s a vaguely familiar blonde in lavender with sparkling diamonds in her ears, and her laughter rings out loudest. Her cheeks are flushed and the sight dries his throat. Wetting his lips, he begins to weave through the crowd until he finds her, and it’s easy enough from there to compel her dancing partner away. On another night, a better night, a night when his frustration was not running so high, he might dance with the girl first, but tonight he wastes no time in compel her to follow him out of the ballroom.

She’s hushed as he leads her down an empty hall and into a darkened study. She starts to ask a question as he closes the door behind them, the lights still off, but then he’s pressing her into the wall furiously, sliding the shoulder of her dress down and burying his teeth in her shoulder, drinking and drinking and drinking until he has to gasp. Her head’s thrown back against the wall and she whimpers.

“Shhhh,” he tells her, tilts her face so his eyes can meet hers. “Shhhh, love, you’re fine.” He releases his grip on her, and bites slightly lower, just beneath her collarbone, letting himself drown in the taste of her. When he looks up at her, he can barely see her but for the sliver of light that’s escaped into the room. All he sees is pale skin and blonde curls, and another groan escapes him as he straightens up, lets her slump into his arms.

“You won’t remember this,” he whispers, and normally he wouldn’t expend so much effort on precaution, but it hasn’t been long since their last close call with Father, and he’s been exceptionally careful since arriving in New York.

“I won’t... remember,” the girl parrots back slowly, her voice a bit slurred.

“There’s a good girl,” he murmurs distractedly, adjusting the neck of her dress to cover the bites before he slips out of the room, leaving her behind. It doesn’t matter much what she does now so long as he’s left no corpse or mysteriously vanished person to deal with.

When he re-enters the ballroom, the dancing is still full swing, though two people are most noticeably absent. He halts under the arched entryway, shoulders tense and jaw clenched. A waiter passes by him, a young man that’s all tousled blonde hair and stiffly pressed clothes, and Klaus reaches out and grabs his arm.

“My sister, Rebekah Graham—” one false identity among many, simple, not a name to grab attention, “—have you seen her?”

The man – a boy, honestly, he realizes, probably not even in his twenties – looks startled, and swallows.

“Her—I saw—she was with a man earlier, he left, he—he was with companions, they were discussing a cigar club—I cannot say if Miss Graham—”

“Where is it?” Klaus demands, fingers digging deeper into the boy’s arm. He begins to stutter out directions, but Klaus is more focused on the flush of red marking his neck, the way his throat constricts as he trips over his words, Adam’s apple bobbing.

“A moment of your time, first,” he interrupts, voice silky and low. He meets the boy’s eyes. “Come with me.” He wants to rip him apart with none of the tenderness he’d shown the girl only minutes earlier. He wants to entice screams out of him, wants to make him beg for his trivial little life. He is a fuse moments from exploding; he can’t get his brother’s face out of his mind, can’t do anything but imagine him leading Rebekah away from the dancing socialites, the two of them ducking away with their heads bowed low, Kol murmuring some enticements or another and Rebekah eager as always for the type of excitement Kol promises

This is not a new occurrence, and that is the problem. Kol is unreliable and untrustworthy. Kol does as he pleases, because Kol doesn’t have to fear their father finding him wherever he goes, and Kol certainly doesn’t have to worry about anyone else aside from himself. Kol comes into their lives whenever and wherever he finds them, always with assurances that Father is not following him, but one day, _one day_  he is going to get them found

Klaus wets his lips as his stomach coils tight inside him. Everything around him is noise and the scent of blood and he needs it, needs to calm the temptation and release his anger discreetly before he makes a scene – and wouldn’t that be a sight, no better than Kol

When he stumbles into an empty hall, only one gas lamp flickering, he rounds on the boy, sinks his teeth into his neck with a low sound like a growl, and for one moment he pretends that it is his brother he is attacking. The boy is dazed from the compulsion, barely makes any noise, not like the girl of earlier, but they blur in his mind anyway, and he isn’t sure if his rage is with Kol or Rebekah – but the blood is sticky in his throat and so satisfying, and when he is done, he pulls back and lets the boy slump to the ground.

He stares down at him for a long moment, debates how best to hide this discretion, but finally settles for simply grabbing his chin and commanding, “You won’t remember me,” before stalking off.

 

 

 

The stuttered directions forgotten, Klaus heads back to their town house and waits. It’s nearing two in the morning when there is raucous laughter outside the door, followed by Kol and Rebekah sweeping into the foyer. Kol’s arm is draped over Rebekah’s shoulders and she’s giggling into his neck. Her dress is rumpled and they reek of smoke and Klaus wants to smash something.

“Where the hell—” Klaus starts, but Kol laughs loudly.

“Oh, don’t even start, _brother._ We were sampling the city, you could have come along.” He winks as he throws in the last part, lips twitching in a smirk, always so amused with himself, and Klaus knows that no, Kol’s intent was always to steal Rebekah away, to spend time only the two of them, to provoke and provoke and provoke.

And this, this is what he hates too, the way jealousy gnaws at him almost as bad as frustration when his younger brother is around – and the way Kol is so very aware of it, does anything he can to deepen it.

“ _Boys,”_ Rebekah pouts. She untangles herself from Kol’s arm, sways across the floor with a smirk of her own, and raises a hand to Klaus’s cheek lightly. “Don’t fight,” she insists, and he clenches his jaw under her touch. She strokes, her gloved fingertip soft on his face. He reaches for her hand, closes his own around it and lowers them, twisting their fingers together harshly.

“Coming?” Bekah whispers, her lips curled and her eyes wide, enticing, as she tips her head towards the stairs that lead upstairs, lead to her bedroom.

Kol laughs, lounging in the entrance. He’s getting another cigar out, despite having just come from the club, and Klaus has already decided that he now hates the stench. He wonders if Kol is aware of that as well. 

ldquo;Aren’t you two _domesticated_ ,” Kol spits as he lights the cigar. “What’s this, play brother and sister by day, man and wife by night? That’s what gets you all hot these days?” He snorts, and starts to walk off, heading for the living room, but stops at Rebekah’s side and presses a quick kiss to her cheek on the way

And then he’s gone, and Klaus isn’t aware how tightly he’s still gripping Rebekah’s hand until she yanks it away from him

“Come with us next time,” she implores a moment later, voice soft – and he knows what she is really asking, how she wants them to be three again, like once they were with Elijah, like they have been in the past with Kol when he would deign to spill into their lives. But again Klaus tastes bitterness, feels jealousy coiling inside of him; it is too much a competition with Kol, it has always been.

“For all we know he’ll be gone in the morning.” He doesn’t need to add how much he wishes this to be true.

 

 

 

Kol isn’t gone in the morning. Kol stays, taking up space with his presence, loud and unapologetic and obnoxious, clogging the air with smoke and noise.

A few days pass before Klaus accompanies him and Rebekah to the cigar club – the same one? He isn’t sure, doesn’t ask. Rebekah wears a navy dress with no petticoat beneath, and just before they enter the establishment, Kol pulls out a string of pearls for her, dangles them in the air with a grin.

“Only the best for my sister,” he declares. “Tiffany’s finest.” Rebekah holds her hair up and he fastens them around her neck. “Or at least – I think that was her name.” He laughs at his own joke, winks at Rebekah. “I’ll admit I was paying more attention to how _delicious_ she tasted.” Kol hums low appreciation, and Rebekah shakes her head, but even that gesture conveys more fondness than annoyance.

“Let’s go inside,” she announces, glancing quickly at Klaus as if to offer reassurance, but the idea that he needs to be _reassured_ has only the opposite effect, and he is grinding his teeth as they enter. The club is tucked away off a side-street, and certainly not the sort of place a woman should be seen, but Kol’s evidently had a word with the clientele, and no one comments as Rebekah takes a seat with them at a small table with plush chairs. The walls are paneled with wood, and there’s a man playing piano in the corner, sending a quick, jazzy tune up into the heavy air.

Another man approaches the table with a tin opened to a selection of cigars, and Kol leans over to point. “ _La Flor de Ynclan_ ,” he rolls his tongue over a terrible imitation of a Spanish accent. “Each of us,” he decides, and glances at Klaus with a nod. “Trust me, you’ll enjoy these ones,” he says – but _ah_ , Klaus cannot help thinking _,_ that is precisely the problem: he _doesn’t_ trust Kol. For an issue of this simplicity, it matters not, but he only smiles thinly anyway, and doesn’t take his eyes away until he’s offered the selected cigar

He lights it and inhales deep, lets the smoke settle deep in his chest. It feels like his lungs are shrinking, tightening, as he watches Rebekah lean close to Kol, allowing him to light her own cigar before settling back in her seat. She smokes it like nothing out of the ordinary, her lips curled smug around it; Bekah’s always loved getting away with affairs reserved for men, and Kol’s own smirk makes it clear that he’s aware of that. He knows Rebekah well, after all. He’s her brother too

—but he’s not what they are, he never stood over their mother’s grave and made promises of eternity; he is anything but eternal in their lives, in Rebekah’s life, and if Klaus were to compose an actual list of all the reason he hates his youngest brother, that just might be one of them.

“Tell me, _Bekah_ ,” Kol announces, fresh off a drag of smoke. His grin is all teeth and exaggerated eyes, and he wets his lips before he continues. “Who do you want?” He gestures vaguely behind him, to the men gathered at the other tables. “I’m hungry, but I’ll let you pick,” and he winks.

Pick for _them_ , someone to _share_ , is the implication that Klaus doesn’t miss

Rebekah nibbles at her lip as she surveys the crowd, before finally raising a finger to point at a young man one table over with short, dark hair and dark eyes. Kol murmurs his appreciation and gets to his feet, tugging his jacket into place as he struts over, cigar cocked between teeth again

Klaus is startled back from watching his brother depart as Rebekah blows a puff of smoke in his face and giggles. “Enjoying yourself?” she quips.

He makes a show of letting his gaze roam over their surroundings, nose wrinkled purposefully, as disdainful as can be when he looks pointedly at Kol again. Klaus inhales smoke, exhales and shrugs, his eyes still on his brother

“ _How the mighty have fallen,”_ he murmurs, and that is all the response he gives.

 

 

 

Two days later, Klaus is the one who decides on their entertainment for the evening

He chooses the Opera

Rebekah stuns in a black gown with a tight bodice and lace patterned overtop. Kol gets her to fix his tie before they depart, and meets Klaus’s eyes purposefully as she does, winking at him

Klaus grinds his teeth sharply, hating how familiar the white-hot anger that flares under his skin is. He turns his back on his brother and sister, moves quickly down the steps to the street where the electric car awaits them. He takes the driver’s seat

Kol helps Rebekah into the car.

He helps her out as well, when they arrive at the Metropolitan. They look dashing together, all sharp features and slim bodies accentuated in black. Klaus walks at Rebekah’s other side, but does not take her arm. He clenches and unclenches and clenches and unclenches his fingers and cannot stop.

Only when they are inside, much later in the dark of the theatre, does Rebekah reach for his hand. She squeezes it and he glances up sharply to meet her eyes. There is something fond in them, something familiar.

“Bekah, _darling_ ,” Kol interrupts – Klaus clenches his jaw – with a hand on her arm. “Would you like a drink for the evening?” He sounds like he’s waiting to deliver a punch line, laughter hidden between his words, and when Klaus looks over he understands why

Onstage, a woman is trilling in Italian, her notes floating into the hushed audience, as Kol offers out the arm of the seemingly compelled girl seated next to him, running his finger back and forth from wrist to inner elbow

“Pick the spot,” he instructs Rebekah, eyes daring. She sighs, shifting in her seat, and points somewhere approximate to the middle

Kol closes his eyes, throat constricting visibly, and when he opens them they have darkened, veins prominent against his pale skin. He bites into the girl’s wrist, precisely where Rebekah has pointed, and groans a quiet approval. His mouth is clean when he pulls away, and he tugs the girl into his lap discreetly to offer her arm out to Rebekah

For her part, Rebekah looks amused. She raises the arm in examination, sniffing before she presses her mouth to the torn flesh, letting her eyes flutter closed as she drinks in deep. Kol sinks his teeth into the girl’s neck, and he and Rebekah drink together. Klaus wants to look around them, see if anyone has noticed, but he cannot tear his eyes away from the spectacle

Onstage, the music swells, a chorus adding their voices to the melody, ringing out loud into the theatre, where the audience remains captivated on the edges of their seats. Klaus looks over two seats past Kol, sees an older woman too enraptured by the swell and intensity of the sound, by the bright light and colour, to notice how her daughter slumps in her seat where Kol returns her.

“We might want to leave now,” Kol whispers, grinning and patting Rebekah’s leg before offering her a hand as he gets to his feet. She rises easily, and looks down at Klaus. Behind them, a man complains loudly about his blocked view. Before any more attention is direct towards them – or the dead girl in the next seat – Klaus rises quickly, striding past other viewers to the end of their row of plush red seats.

“You can’t walk out—” An usher is standing in the wing by the exit, and he whispers to them agitatedly.  Kol pushes past Klaus and snaps the man’s neck. The shadows hide them. For now

When they emerge into the main hall, Kol is unusually quiet, lips pressed firmly together. If he were anyone else, Klaus would presume he was deep in thought. He can’t help glancing over again and again. Kol is holding Rebekah’s hand tightly – Klaus has no idea for how long

“Wait,” Kol says, when they reach the lobby.

“What are we waiting for?” Klaus spits out, impatient.

Kol doesn’t respond. He’s tapping his foot on the ground, and his head is tilted at an angle that suggests he is trying to listen. If Klaus focuses, he can still hear the Opera, can hear the last note as it is drawn out impeccably, can hear the following hush that exists in the split second before the audience begins to applaud.

He also hears the scream

Kol’s entire body relaxes, shoulders sloping, head dropping, as the sound pierces through everything else. He is grinning, and Klaus gets it now; he gets _“Wait.”_

And then there comes the flood of people, spilling out of the theatre and descending the stairs, a crowd of men in dark suits and women in bright gowns that trail along the floor. There is a growing murmur, the sort of panic that rises amongst those who don’t quite know what is wrong, Klaus thinks, only that _something_ is wrong.

“Sebastian!” Kol cries out, ever casual as he gestures at a dark-haired man with a pretty blonde on his arm. Klaus faintly recognizes them, and he rationalizes that they are rich and important, though probably dull as can be

They approach; the lady is clutching her husband’s arm, lips pulled together with worry. Sebastian’s forehead is marred by a deep wrinkle

“Did you hear?” he begins. “I think—someone said there’s a _body_ —”

“I have an announcement!” Kol breezes on as if the man never spoke, though the twitch in the corner of his mouth betrays his amusement with the situation. Sebastian and his wife blink in almost perfect unison.

Kol is still squeezing Rebekah’s hand, so tightly, and he lifts their hands joined together. Klaus meets Rebekah’s eye and she fidgets, then sighs and turns her head back to Kol

“Miss Graham and I are to be married!”

There’s a collective gasp, not only from the happy couple but eavesdroppers as well, men and women just intending on leaving the theatre who can’t help but hear. This is not the proper way to announce a betrothal, they are thinking. This is not the proper setting for such an announcement. But it is an exciting announcement regardless, and the murmurs turn quickly from panicked to congratulatory, festive.

Klaus cannot tear his eyes away from his brother. _This is a game_ , he thinks. Kol is playing a game with him, with Rebekah, with the entire city, but Klaus doesn’t understand why. He only understands anger, bitter and violent and seeping through his entire body

Kol is laughing, accepting congratulations and showing off the ring that has somehow emerged on Rebekah’s finger – Klaus remembers how tightly he’d held her hand. Rebekah is smiling, demure and polite and everything she is not

Klaus doesn’t understand why _she_ is playing the game.

 

 

 

They are near silent in the car. Kol whispers nonsense in Rebekah’s ear – proper nonsense, not words at all, sounds and syllables for the sole purpose of provocation, and approving hums that grate on Klaus’s skin. Rebekah finally rolls her eyes and shoves Kol’s head away, at the same moment that Klaus speaks up, as evenly as he can manage.

“What is the meaning of this, brother?”

Kol laughs. He shrugs with his entire body, lounging back in the seat. “These people do love a good party, thought I’d give them an occasion.” He winks at Rebekah, and she smirks good-naturedly and Klaus wants to knock their heads together.

“You’re going to marry Rebekah,” he states flatly.

“I know, I know, the domesticated life was _your_ thing,” Kol gestures between the two of them. “But the whole city knows she’s your sister, and I don’t think New York is quite that _avant-garde_.”

“Whatever you’re playing at—” Klaus starts.

“Oh, stop it, both of you!” Rebekah snaps. “This is all just a bit of nonsense. You love each other and I love you both, but you’re driving me mad.”

And she says it – _I love you both –_ like she means _equally_ , like they are actual on equal positions when Kol is nothing but an inconsistent presence, when Kol hasn’t fled across the world with her countless times over, when the very idea that they could be equal in her eyes, he and _Kol_ , is nothing short of ludicrous.

“You don’t mean that.”

Rebekah frowns. “What?”

“You’re not actually _taking his side_ , you don’t possibly _trust_ him—he’s done nothing, Bekah, nothing for you ever, you’re—you’re supposed to be _mine_ —”

“No.”

The one word cuts through his agitation, finite and precise. Klaus can’t turn his head to look at his sister.

“I am _not_ —” Rebekah draws in a breath, loudly, and there is proper silence for too long. “That is something I am most certainly _not_ ,” she finally says.

Klaus barely hears her; he is already stalling the car and bursting out the door, stumbling onto the road and leaving them behind as quickly as he can.

 

 

 

The cigarette is crap, but he smokes it anyway, in the narrow alley that cuts between the row of town houses. On the other side of this brick wall, Kol and Rebekah are only arriving home now, conversing inside, talking in hushed tones quietly enough he can’t hear them without straining

He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get his brother’s game, he doesn’t get what he’s playing at with Rebekah, he doesn’t get the _point_ of Kol’s presence here in New York, and it’s becoming increasingly apparent that if he doesn’t get it, there’s no way he can hope to be a step ahead of him. Unless Rebekah _is_ the point, but even if that’s the case, Kol still seems to be ahead. Never mind that Klaus has kept Rebekah close to him for nine hundred years. Kol is new, Kol is exciting, and Kol has been missed.

He tosses the cigarette on the ground, grinds it against the asphalt with his heel. His lips feel cracked and dry and he wants nothing more than to find someone with a beating pulse and suck them dry. Or to find Rebekah.

He chooses the latter.

The lights have been extinguished when he steps inside, hanging his jacket and hat while rolling out a kink in his shoulders. There’s a soft noise from upstairs, hushed and delicate and barely there but so unbearably familiar he freezes. Rebekah cries out again.

It only takes a second for him to move up to the landing, grabbing the banister and gripping it tight, anger pounding behind his eyes. It’s so sudden and strong his vision nearly blacks out. He hears her again, muffled slightly – A pillow? he wonders, or perhaps Kol’s shoulder? Klaus knows how well his sister likes to bite into flesh when she’s trying to quiet herself. It’s all to no avail anyway, though. There’s no way either of them could possibly imagine he wouldn’t hear. Rebekah can pretend as she wants, but this tastes like very purposeful revenge for his words earlier tonight.

He doesn’t dwell on considering that it could be anything else, that it could be separate from himself entirely. That’s entirely too unnerving (entirely too frightening).

Instead, he inches forward, silent on the plush carpet. The bedroom door lies open a crack, and he finds himself leaning against the wall, folding his arms as he peers inside.

Rebekah’s hair is undone, fanned out in tangles over the pillow behind her. Her legs are wrapped around Kol’s waist, and his fingers are digging into the skin of her thigh. They’re naked, though only a hint of flickering light reaches the bed. The sheets have slid all the way off to the floor, and for a moment Klaus imagines how Rebekah would push at them irritably with her feet until she was free of them. She’s breathing rapidly now, and he feels completely detached as he watches her moan and try to quiet it in Kol’s shoulder

An out of body experience, truly. He feels as if he is watching Bekah and himself, has to remind himself that it is Kol enticing those sounds out of her

He has no idea if they are aware of him – if they are they give no sign – but he remains where he is until Rebekah cries out again, loudly, with no attempt to muffle the noise this time, and arches her back off the mattress, her neck tipping back in graceful slope. Kol is murmuring something, murmuring quick words into Bekah’s ear, nipping at the lobe, but Klaus doesn’t try to listen.

He walks away.

 

 

 

Tension builds between them almost immediately. Rebekah strolls around the house in nothing but a satin robe, and Klaus can do nothing but imagine where Kol’s mouth has been, where his teeth marked her flesh before it healed; _nothing is permanent._

Kol takes to going out alone during the day, gambles and day drinks and drinks from the necks of young men and women in Central Park, and comes home with his mouth stained red. Klaus and Rebekah live in the spaces around each other while he is gone, and he knows she is being just as stubborn as him in not wanting to be the one to break first, to admit that anything has changed.

“I’m _bored_ ,” Rebekah announces on a Sunday. She’s in the doorway of his bedroom, legs bare beneath her robe, hair disheveled. She crosses her arms and leans into the frame. He can’t tell if she’s offering a truce or playing a taunt. His uncertainty bothers him more than he would have expected.

“Go find your fiancée.” He opts for monotone, neutral. “Kiss him in public, make a scandal, why don’t you?”

Rebekah wrinkles her nose, and steps into the room. She fiddles with the neck of her robe, then the ends of her hair, before sighing dramatically as she lowers herself onto the chaise by his wardrobe.

“People are so _uppity._ ” She rolls her eyes. “And I meant I’m bored of _New York_.”

“I’m sure your honeymoon will provide a pleasant distraction,” he says mildly.

She snorts. “Oh, don’t act so _jilted_ , brother. It’s only a game to pass the time. Only some _fun_. You’d already told everyone I was your sister, you can hardly complain.”

And isn’t that true, Klaus thinks. Kol arrives back in their lives and sweeps Rebekah up in _fun_ , entertains her to pass the time, because it’s easy to live on entertainment when none of it has any consequence

“I’m not jilted,” he lies. “I’m _despairing._ ” He widens his eyes emphatically. “For _you_ , darling.”

“No, you’re _childish._ ” Rebekah uncrosses her legs and stands, sighing loudly. She tosses him a pointed look over her shoulder as she sweeps out of the room.

“We’re _all_ family here, don’t forget that.”

He doesn’t forget it. In fact, he can suddenly think of nothing else even after she leaves.

 

 

 

Kol takes him out to the cigar den again. Rebekah doesn’t accompany them this time, and Klaus tries to watch for a shift in his brother’s behavior, tries to see which of the many airs he puts on are for her sake – and for the sake of getting under _his_ skin.

Kol orders the same cigars, with the same disgusting pronunciation and the same cheesy grins. His expression remains mildly amused all through the night, as if he’s waiting for Klaus to figure something out. Or maybe he just thinks the entire evening is a ridiculous idea. It’s a competition in niceties, both so determined to act unbothered.

They drink and they smoke and when the night is no longer young something slips; Klaus isn’t sure when, isn’t sure if it’s the smoke or the drinks, but there’s a thirst gnawing at his dry, dry throat, and Kol is leaning close, nodding his head toward the hall, and something – something in his expression has slipped, yes, that’s it, he looks jarringly serious, only a slight curve of his mouth suggests the faintest smirk rather than his grins of earlier.

They steal away and share a man with the brightest green eyes in the hallway to the restroom, tearing into his neck from both sides. They are messy and Klaus relishes in it, relishes in the way the blood spills and smears into the skin, relishes in the approving growls of his brother, relishes in digging his nails into Kol’s arm as they feed

He’s not heavy-headed quite yet; he feels remarkably light instead, laughs raucously when they are done feeding and let the corpse slump to the ground. Kol nudges it with the toe of his shoe, and laughs even louder

“Time to get out of here, I think,” he advises, and this time when he winks it does not feel like a mockery

Klaus grins.

His lungs feel thick with smoke and his throat wet with fresh blood as they stumble out of the cigar den, jackets peeled off and top buttons undone. Kol stretches his arms above his head, and where the moon shines on white fabric he appears to glow

They came in the car, but they do not drive home. They run, dart smoothly along sidewalks and through alleys; they are shadows in the shadows, impossible to see. The night air is cool and crisp, a refreshing change from the atmosphere they’ve left behind. Klaus doesn’t know how long it takes, but then they are home. _Home._ The word thrums in his ears.

“Hello?” Rebekah calls down from upstairs. Klaus moves into the lobby, sees her descending the stairs in her nightgown

“We’re back, Bekah!” Kol shouts from behind him.

“Yes, I can see that.”

“Missed us?” Klaus asks suddenly, feeling bold. Everything is still odd, _wrong_ , between he and Bekah, but he manages a grin as he walks to the stairs, begins to ascend to where she is still standing motionless.

“Don’t flatter yourselves,” she scoffs, but her eyes betray her amusement.

“You know, we had quite a fun time tonight,” Kol boasts, coming to join them on the stairs, smirking at Rebekah, who doesn’t look as surprised as Klaus would have thought.

Kol snakes a hand around Rebekah’s waist, grinning. She raises an eyebrow at him but doesn’t pull away, doesn’t push him away. Klaus remains where is. Watches. His mouth feels dry, as if he and Kol didn’t just drain a man dry before they left the cigar club. As if he’s some newborn vampire with no control over his most basic impulses. He swallows.

“Shall we head upstairs?” Kol murmurs, though there’s no point to it, they all know that Klaus can hear him. Kol nips at Rebekah’s ear, and she wets her lips. Klaus cannot look away

This is different. This is blatant and this is happening right in front of him, and Kol and Rebekah might be carrying on a charade for the people of this city, but this is here in their home, and Rebekah isn’t even pretending. She can’t possibly be angry with him still. She _is_ his, Klaus thinks. She is his, but he is _hers_ , more than anyone else’s, and that has always been their way

And now Kol is back. And he is theirs too. Klaus can think of nothing but the last time they three were together, the last time Kol shoved his way into their lives. He was theirs and they were his too. They belonged. But this—this isn’t that. This is tense, this is a fuse waiting to go off, this is everything uneven and unbalanced and Rebekah in the centre of it all, and none of them able to call each other _theirs._

And Kol and Rebekah begin to move upstairs.

But—

Kol catches his eye, smirk wiped away in favour of dark seriousness, lips parted on the brink of words he will not say, a thousand implications. And Rebekah looks at him too, not in the same moment, not until they are moving into the bedroom. She looks at him as if to ask _‘Well, what are you going to do about this?’_ and Klaus remembers one hundred years ago and a different house in a different city with a different bedroom, and he remembers his brother and his sister and how they _belonged._ And he follows them upstairs

Klaus hesitates in the doorway, hand on the frame, his throat tight and dry as he watches Kol fall onto the bed easily, back to smirking in that easy way of his as he props himself up by his elbows, eyes on Rebekah. She’s reaching for the hem of her nightgown, pulling it slowly up her leg, and Klaus can’t see her expression. She pulls the garment over her head completely; it yanks her curls up with it and then they settle behind her shoulders, swaying momentarily

“ _Now_ you’ll join us, is that it?” Kol calls out from the bed, and Klaus only looks away from his sister then, not missing the implication to his brother’s words, the hint that he had not been unnoticed the other night after all

“He must be feeling nostalgic,” Rebekah quips without turning her head, and Klaus remembers sunlight streaming through the windowpane and silk sheets that she would always shove away with her feet and how Kol would laugh with his head tipped back

He slides his suit jacket off slowly, lets it fall on the floor. Kol is tugging his tie off; somehow they are both still near fully dressed, while Rebekah stands between them naked. She turns her head finally, looks at him over her shoulder and smirks. “Need help, brother?” And then she’s moving in a blur to stand in front of him, deftly working at the buttons of his shirt. She grins and pretends to bite his shoulder once the shirt is gone. Kol makes a vague complaint of inattention from the bed that goes ignored.

Klaus raises a hand to his sister’s cheek, strokes his thumb over the bone and leans his forehead against hers, breathes in deeply for the sake of it. “ _Bekah_ ,” he says, and she smiles, presses a quick kiss to his mouth and then spins away from him, flitting to the bed. Kol sits up to grab her hand, kissing it softly and then tugging her on top of him. She laughs, almost a shriek, falling to straddle his waist, and she begins to help rid him of his shirt as well

It only takes them a few seconds before all their clothing lies discarded on the floor. Klaus moves slowly towards the bed. Rebekah is facing away, and it’s Kol’s eyes he meets. His brother is unblinking, almost challenging with the way he tilts his chin out. Klaus crawls onto the bed behind Rebekah, pressing his mouth to the skin of her neck. She groans, tipping her head back, and he inhales deeply. He trails kisses along her collarbone, warm and soft along the line of her shoulder. Kol shifts against the pillows, sitting up a bit more to kiss the other side of Rebekah’s neck. He nips with his teeth, and she makes a noise of protest, but her eyes are closed and she looks radiant

Klaus wraps his arm around Rebekah’s waist, pulls them closer together and presses his fingertips into her skin before he feels another hand brushing his, and then Kol’s fingers interlock with his, their grip steady. He feels Rebekah shiver, and he knows that yes, yes, this was always going to happen again, this was the only way, this was what she’s wanted all along, all of them back together. This is how they _work._

Rebekah lifts her hands from where they were clenched in the sheets, tangles her arms around Kol’s neck instead and shifts herself atop him. With his hand that’s not gripped tight in Kol’s, Klaus strokes down her side, helps guide her as Kol angles his hips upward, and when she sinks down to take him inside her, Klaus is the one lets go a shuddering breath

There is moonlight, not sunlight, streaming through the window, illuminating pale curves of skin and the white sheets that remain tangled around them. Klaus presses closer to his sister, finding purchase on the mattress with his legs overlapped between Kol’s. His brother’s skin is hot against his own

Kol’s head is thrown back against the pillows. With one hand, he traces the contours of Rebekah’s breast, and with the other he finds his way to Klaus’s shoulder, digs his nails into the skin. Klaus shudders, bows his head and kisses Rebekah’s neck, her cheek, her mouth as she tilts her head back. _“Nik_ ,” she whispers.

He closes his eyes.

 

 

 

Sex stabilizes everything and just like that they are a family again.

Klaus sits outside on the cramped balcony, with a cigar stolen from Kol, and laughs at this. He blows smoke into the morning air and watches it disappear while Kol and Rebekah remain asleep inside, tangled up in each other. The sheets are on the floor

He thinks he can still feel Bekah’s lips on his, like a ghost, and her hands trailing along his arms. He remembers her gasps, remembers her on top of him or on her side with his arm wrapped around her – he remembers Kol’s teeth on his skin, and his brother’s hands stroking through Rebekah’s hair, and how he laughs even during sex, how that smirk never disappears unless there’s a better use to be found for his mouth

The white-tension inside him is melted away, the frustration gone. When Kol wakes up, he comes out to the balcony, pushing the door open and stretching his arms into the open air before leaning forward, curling his hands around the rail and taking in the city without a care for his nakedness. Bekah joins them last, wrapped up in the very same sheets she’d been so quick to kick away.  She steals Klaus’s cigar (Kol’s cigar) and takes a seat on his lap to smoke it

The smoke wafts away over Kol’s shoulder and he turns with a grin, nicking it from her and pressing a kiss to her mouth to quiet her complaint. Klaus chuckles

They stay out on the balcony until the sun is high in the sky.

After that, they all fall into a rhythm easily, like it hasn’t been a century. This is how they balance. This is the only way they function, together, and Rebekah shoots him smug looks all too often, because she knew it all along. Klaus believes it, believes that this is them functioning, because he wants to so badly. Kol is back, and they are three, and they are family. They are all he wants.

 

 

 

Sex causes the tension to dissipate, he thinks

(It hides it away, lets it boil undercover and unseen.)

But he is not aware of that part.

 

 

 

Klaus is returning home from a midnight feast of a pretty blonde at the top of the Empire State Building when it happens. He hears them from outside the house, hears his brother even though Kol is whispering

He is not hearing right. It is impossible.

The white-hot heat under his skin is back as if it never left, familiar and pounding pounding pounding. He does not move

“Come with me,” he hears again. “You’ll be safe,” Kol whispers. “Safer than with him.”

And he was right. He was right all along to think his brother was a bastard, he was right to think his brother was unreliable and untrustworthy, he was right to think his brother would leave as he always does as soon as it suited him, but _this_ , whispered enticements to Rebekah, _“Safer than with him”_ —

He doesn’t think; he is bursting through the front door and up the staircase in a blue, his vision pulsing red and his throat dry with desire to rip his brother’s throat out, because anger and thirst have become so tangled somewhere along the way

They’re in the bedroom, Rebekah’s bedroom, naked on the bed with the sheets on the floor. Kol’s hand rests on Rebekah’s cheek, and Klaus cannot see his sister’s face until it turns, quick and horrified

“Nik—” she starts to say, but Kol laughs

“Let him, sister. Let him rage. It’s all true, and he knows it.” Kol rises to his feet with his taunts, insufferable as ever, and Klaus does not know how he ever let that pass him by

“Father only wants _him_ ,” Kol accuses him, and the taunt slips, there is nothing but bitterness. “He’s the reason you run and hide, Bekah – what, you think Father will think more fondly of you when he finds you at his side?” He laughs. “Mark my word, it’ll happen,” he swears, stepping forward, challenging, and Klaus snarls, throws himself forward and slams Kol into the wall, one hand coming up to his throat

“It’s— _true_ ,” Kol wheezes. “Every. Single. Word. And you know, you’re just selfish, you _know_ she’s better off without you.” He sniffs, disgusted. “We both are.”

“He will _not_ find us,” Klaus hisses. “I will be the one to kill him, you hear me, brother, you mark _my_ word.”

Kol’s lips twist viciously, a mockery of his usual smirk

“You’ll get _her_ killed,” he spits

And Klaus releases his brother. He is gone from the room in a blur, he is moving down the hallway and stumbling into his own room, tearing drawers out and ripping through his chests until his fingers close around the thin metal hilt. _Dipped in ash,_ he thinks. His hands are shaking and he nearly drops the glass bottle, only manages to stab the dagger into it quickly and then he is gone from the bedroom, letting the bottle drop to the floor

He stops when he reaches Rebekah’s bedroom, and enters slowly. She is standing now, like she might run after him, but she looks bewildered. Kol is sneering

“What are you going to _do_ —” his brother taunts

And Klaus stabs him through the heart.

Rebekah shrieks. Kol’s eyes blaze once as he realizes what is happening, what has happened; he is snarling hatred as his body stiffens and greys and his skin cracks. Klaus lets go his brother’s body and it slumps to the floor. The room is heavy with silence, and he does not dare look up at his sister. Downstairs, the grandfather clock rings out a new hour. Rebekah places her hand on his arm.

 

 

 

They leave that night, and they pretend that is unrelated – they should have left ages ago, they have been here too long and who are they to know if Father was not following Kol after all. They slip away from the city in the dark with their brother’s body and leave the bright lights of New York City behind them.

They do not return.  


  



End file.
